From sketch to screen

By ALASTAIR SLOANE

Audi has launched a trend in product placement with the futuristic RSQ sports car it built for actor Will Smith to use in the upcoming sci-fi movie I Robot.

Carmakers have for years been using films to show off their latest models. Audi did so with Mission: Impossible II in 2000, The Insider in 1999 and Ronin in 1998.

But for I Robot, Audi designed and built a car specially for the film.

The German company says the RSQ sports coupe is a "futuristic interpretation of Audi design language".

It was designed in co-operation with the Twentieth Century Fox film's director Alex Poroyas (Dark City, The Crow).

Poroyas is an Audi owner and decided to approach the company after seeing the Nuvolari concept car at last year's Detroit motor show, which showed off Audi's new grille.

The RSQ includes special features suggested by Proyas, such as futuristic spheres to replace the wheels.

Tim Miksche, Audi's go-between for the movie industry, said that while the film depicts a future in which cars are controlled by an automated grid, the fact that Smith chooses to drive himself "makes a brand statement for us".

It took Audi just 10 weeks to go from sketch to drivable vehicle. Three running versions of the RSQ were built. One was purposely crashed for the film, and another used for interior shots. The third will be used for the film's promotion.

Audi also supplied volume models which appear - in disguised shapes - in the movie's traffic scenes.

I, Robot is based loosely on the futuristic stories by Isaac Asimov. It is set in the year 2035, where robots are household servants. Everybody trusts them - expect a paranoid detective played by Smith. He reckons they are a threat to the human race.